Times Have Changed
by Aietradaea
Summary: Pending the inquiry into her actions on Gryben, Lady President Romana pays a visit to the secretive Keeper of the Matrix.
1. ,,,We Came In?

**Disclaimer:** I own only my various muses... The Master took one look at what I had in store for him and demanded a holiday.

****Summary: ****Pending the inquiry into her actions on Gryben, Lady President Romana pays a visit to the secretive Keeper of the Matrix. Set between "Square One" and "The Inquiry" of season one of the Gallifrey audios; no major spoilers, but be warned, this is an AU from that point - it will _not_ slot nicely into the Gallifrey canon. Also, I should mention that even though I've been known to 'ship Valeyard/Matrix elsewhere, this is _not_ one of those occasions - so please don't be reading...insinuations...where there aren't any!

**Warnings:** Just a touch of Floyd and Kafka... ;) And the Valeyard. Being...creepy.

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><p>Buried deep in the ancient heart of the Citadel, the central control room of the Matrix archives was rarely visited these days. The air was cold and still; drawing her robes closer around herself, Romana could almost feel the miles of stone and glass that rose above her weighing down the very air as she hurried through the corridors.<p>

The inquiry was less than a day away now, and her frustration was mounting by the hour at the speed of the progress that was being made with the investigation into the timonic fusion device. It seemed that even now, as President of the Time Lords, secrets were being kept from her – in fact, there were days when she felt she knew less than ever about what went on behind her back. If there was one thing her time in her Presidency had taught her more effectively than the Academy had ever done, it was that politicians were the same the universe over, and Time Lords were just as evasive, just as corrupt, just as slippery as any others.

There was, however, one way in which the innermost workings of their society could be laid bare – one source of information held under lock and key, the great minds of countless millions of Time Lords sealed eternally into a single composite repository of wisdom and experience: the Matrix. For the most part, K-9's access to the Matrix was sufficient for her requirements, but advanced as his own excitonic circuitry was, there was only so much a robot could make of a conglomeration of once-living minds. He could access information, retrieve facts, nothing more. The archivists were little better – no more than simple technicians, most of them, they were denied access to much of the Matrix even at the order of the President herself.

So, as she was so accustomed to doing, Romana had taken matters into her own hands. She sought out the highest authority, the bearer of the Key of Rassilon itself: the Keeper of the Matrix.

As she pressed the button on the intercom beside the door to the archives, it occurred to her that she had never actually seen the Keeper in person. She supposed the very nature of the position called for a Time Lord who could remain away from public attention – after all, not just anyone could access the immaterial wealth contained in the Matrix – but whoever he or she was, this Keeper was even more secretive than their predecessors had been. Even for High Council meetings, she could only recall seeing higher-ranked archivists as representatives to speak on their behalf.

"Romanadvoratrelundar, High President of Gallifrey, requires access to the Matrix. I seek an audience with the Keeper." She spoke briskly into the intercom, a no-nonsense tone that had become a natural flavour of her voice almost without her realizing – power had given her an air of authority, and she knew how to use it.

...

Within the chamber, the light was low; only the winking, flickering lights on the panels of circuitry glinted off the smooth obsidian and green walls, and the Matrix screen high on the wall was dark and silent. Overhead, glassy chronarachnids spun their tiny webs across the angular architecture, pulling in threads of time to catch passing seconds.

Time was creeping steadily over the room, claiming it for its own – unlike the figure who sat beside one of the control panels, still untouched by the years. Eyes closed, the Valeyard rested his elbows on the edge of the panel, a heavy brass key clasped between his folded hands.

Gallifrey was embroiled in political machinations and the order of society was in a delicate balance, he knew that much, but many of the precise details eluded this Keeper of the Matrix. Preoccupied with the future, with the maelstrom that was brewing on the horizon of their civilization, with the whereabouts of the latest of the parts that made up his whole, he had been spending more time in the mental labyrinth of the Matrix than would have been healthy for any Time Lord. There, at least, he retained form and sentience even with the Doctor so insufferably kind-hearted as he was at this point in his timestream.

The sound of the voice through the intercom caused his eyes to snap open, and a shiver of uncertainty ran through him. _Romana_… He remembered her well – companion, protégée, friend…others might have said more, although he could no longer distinguish or even recall such feelings. Would she – _could_ she even bring herself to – recognize him now? The Master had – but then, the Master had known the Doctor for much longer – and had known the Valeyard for what he was, almost as though he had expected it. He could imagine his former selves – his fifth, …_no, I don't want you to see me like this_… – his eighth, perhaps, …_I don't know who I am any more_… – or his tenth, of course, …_I'm sorry, I'm so sorry_…

Let her think her noble Doctor had lost his mind – what was that to him? However, he was concerned about the involvement of the Inquisitor Darkel in the events that were taking place – she would expose him for certain, and see to it that he was removed from the time-space continuum. So, as he pressed the security pad to open the door and rose from his seat to greet the Lady President with a respectful, "My Lady…", he lowered his head, keeping his face slightly averted – it was fortunate that he was attired in the gold robes of the Keeper, with the high, curved collar to shield his features.

She entered without hesitation, head held high, just as proud as ever – …_Romana! How marvellous to see you! Why, you haven't aged a century_… – just as arrogant, just as conceited…he could have curled his lip in contempt as she spoke again.

"Keeper of the Matrix. I don't believe we've met?"

"Our paths may have crossed," he replied. "But as I am sure you are aware, My Lady, the duties of my office prevent me from venturing far from the archives – to my great regret, of course." Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he detected a slight tensing in her expression, as though his voice had struck some familiar chord within her, but she appeared to shrug it off, turning her head to peer around the dimly lit room.

"Is it always so _gloomy_ in here?" she wondered aloud. "Let's have some light, Keeper – I can barely see your face." He obliged, flicking several carefully selected switches on a panel to turn on just a few lights along the wall, but reflecting off the dark walls, the effect was more of a sickly pallor that cast sharp shadows across the room.

"To business, My Lady?" Turning aside, he reached for the rows of coloured biog data extract capsules. "You wished for information." His fingers lightly touched the red and orange cap of one that was intimately familiar to him, one that lingered on his mind every moment of his tentative existence, the only one he concerned himself with; they rested there for the briefest second, before moving down to the DE of Romana and lifting it from the rack.

"I do," she confirmed. "You are aware, of course, of the events on Gryben – of the course of action I took – and now, the inquiry that has been called. Do you have any experience in legal matters?"

"I…have some knowledge of court procedure." Caught off-guard by the throwaway question, the half-truth hadn't come as smoothly as it should have done. …_I don't like lawyers – always askin' questions_… "It seems to me, My Lady," he added quickly, still turned away as his gloved hands expertly moved across a control panel, "that you already have all the evidence you would require for such an inquiry. Is it not standard procedure to present the facts as they occurred and are recorded in the Matrix, as far as pertains to the personal timeline of the accused? Surely you have access to such information?"

"What I _did_ is not in question," Romana said sharply. "What I must convince the court – and Darkel – is that I was _right_ to do it. That timonic fusion device existed, I am certain of it – and what's more, there are Time Lords in this Citadel who know more than they are letting on. I…" She paused, drew a breath, and when she resumed speaking, the stern edge had left her voice; she sounded weary, almost relieved, as though without realizing, she felt herself in the company of an old friend. "I don't know who I can trust any more, Keeper. But I have to know that I was justified – I _have_ to know that I was in the right."

"Can you be so certain of that?"

"What?"

A slip of the tongue. Times had changed – _he_ had changed – but one thing had not changed, and that was that he had never had much respect for authority at the best of times. Oh, he could be flattering when he needed to be, feigning the ingratiating deference which Time Lords in positions of power so loved…and how they _infuriated_ him, every last one, with their tedious traditions, their narrow-minded narcissism, their… His right hand, which still held the Key of Rassilon, clenched into a fist.

"You presume to be the only one who could possibly be right," he bit out through gritted teeth. "But your opponents believe the same thing. Who is to say that you are _not_ at fault?"

"I would remind you, Keeper," she said sternly, "that you are addressing your President."

"Indeed. The Lady President of Gallifrey…one of the highest temporal authorities at this point in the timeband." She couldn't have missed the note of scorn that had entered his voice; he was losing his temper, and he knew it – …_you need to contain your bloodlust_… – but how could he feel anything else, when every fleeting moment of irritation at his companions that even the Doctor had not been immune to was distilled into pure hatred in the entity that he had become – …_ fire and ice and rage…_? He could feel Romana's eyes on his back, feel his palms sweating, his shoulders tensing – not guilt, never that, _never_ again – but to make matters worse, long-buried memories were beginning to drift to the surface of his memory, distant recollections of a happier, _foolish_, _ignorant_ time… "And is it not your duty, _My Lady_, to ensure the integrity of the causal nexus? Yet you are content to turn a blind eye while an old friend of yours blunders about the universe, blatantly flouting the most basic Laws of Time?"

"The Doctor?"

"The Doctor," the Valeyard spat. "Crashing through fixed points in time like a bull in a china shop!" The instant the old Earth idiom slipped out, Romana's eyes widened.

"Who _are_ you?"

"You should have executed him when you had the chance!" Voice escalating with bitterness and fury, he whirled around and the colour drained from Romana's face at the sheer loathing that blazed in his pale eyes – eyes of a soul she recognized instantly.

Breathing heavily, he held her gaze for as long as he could bear – and then, before she could even register the movement, he had turned and flung the Key of Rassilon straight into the centre of the Matrix screen. A blinding flare of white light erupted from the screen, flooding the room and jolting Romana out of her shock as she flung up her arms on reflex to shield her eyes.

When the light faded and she lowered her arms, he was gone, vanished through the fissure that had opened up in the wall before her – a rectangular gap in the solid obsidian and the time itself that had shaped the room, spilling a white glow and tendrils of time energy like mist across the floor – the Seventh Door.

Picking up the hem of her robe, she hurried forwards and followed him without hesitation through the door, as she had done so many times before.


	2. Crimes Innumerable

**Disclaimer:** The Director is beginning to wish I'd never got hold of these characters...but sadly, I still don't own them. (Whee - self-referential in-jokes FTW! ;P )

Many thanks to everyone who reviewed that first chapter - Brownbug, Nitroglycerin, MayFairy, Son of Whitebeard and Theta'sWorstNightmare.

Bit of a short update, sorry - been kind of busy - just didn't want this fic to start gathering dust. Hope you like it, anyway. :) Next one'll be longer, promise!

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><p>She hit the ground hard, stumbling and only just managing to regain her balance by throwing out one arm and catching herself against a wall. Her head was spinning, and it took her longer than it should have done to realize why she still felt so disorientated even after the dizziness had passed: her temporal senses were entirely deadened to the outside world. Of course – the Matrix existed outside relative time – the equivalent, for a Time Lord, of stepping into a soundproof room in the middle of a busy city and slamming the door.<p>

Raising her head and brushing her hair back from her face, she looked around, taking in her surroundings – not that there was much to see, she quickly decided. She appeared to have found herself in – or rather, the mental world of the Matrix had been formed into – a straight, narrow alleyway, stretching on further than she could make out in both directions. Beneath her feet, worn, grey cobblestones formed a rough path, and as she moved, the hem of her robe stirred up a fine layer of dust which settled again in the still air. The walls on either side, towering high overhead to where she could make out a strip of grey sky, were equally drab and grey. Built of uniform concrete bricks that felt strangely cold to the touch, they were almost featureless apart from scattered windows at irregular intervals and varying heights – all boarded up securely from within, she could already tell.

"What a dreary place," she said aloud, as much to break the heavy silence as because she thought anyone might be listening. In her mind's eye, she could still see him – the man she had once called a friend – not in any regeneration she had met before, but _him_ without a doubt. The Doctor. She shivered at the memory – that look of raw, unadulterated hatred, twisting his face into something frightening… Something had happened to the Doctor to make him apparently despise her so; the blow still ached, like a bruise to her hearts, but she resolved that she would find out what and why.

Romana was clever, she knew that. Intellectually, she had often been on a par with the Doctor during her travels with him, and the years between had granted her experience and wisdom beyond her age. As such, if their confrontation had to be in the Matrix, she saw no reason why it should be on his terms alone. They would meet on mutual ground, as the equals they were.

"I deny this reality." Closing her eyes and lifting her voice, she called out, hearing her words echo slightly down the alleyway and then be swallowed by the silence. A dreamscape – that was all it was – a projection, the semblance of scenery forged by the Doctor's own mental energy from the electrical impulses that comprised the Matrix. "I deny this reality. I _deny_ this-"

"Don't be absurd, girl."

Her hearts nearly skipped a beat at the voice that spoke from over her shoulder, and she mentally chided herself even as she spun around – she should have expected something to happen, after all. On the wall behind her were spread a series of flyers, haphazardly slapped onto the wall at careless angles, some overlapping at the corners, some with a corner hanging loose as if they had been posted there in a great hurry. Each showed a face – different faces, but the same man, the Doctor one and all – full-colour photographs whose eyes swivelled to meet Romana's the instant her gaze fell on them. "WANTED," the flyers read above each face – bold, black ink on a sepia-stained background in the style of the Old West. "CRIMES INNUMERABLE."

"You'll only make a fool of yourself." The speaker would have appeared to human eyes to be the oldest of the faces, but Romana could tell that he was, in fact, the youngest, even if he was frowning at her with the disdain of an ancient Academy professor addressing a Time Tot in their first century. "You can't possibly hope to fight the Valeyard."

"Valeyard?" Romana echoed. "A lawyer – a prosecutor?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Another of the faces on the flyers answered her in a reedy voice laced with a trace of a Scottish accent. "A doctor of law, you might even say."

"But he's…_you're_ the Doctor." She shook her head. "I _know_ you."

"Well…I'm afraid, Romana, that I may not be quite the hero you think I am," said another face – an early regeneration again with stern eyes fixed on her from beneath the fringe of a pudding-bowl haircut. "Perhaps I never was. Anyway, it doesn't matter now – I'm not the Doctor any more."

"Then what have you become, 'Valeyard'?" she addressed them in a cold voice.

"The Time Lord Victorious," yet another face replied, a dangerous glint entering his dark eyes. "I lived too long, saw too much…"

"Romana!" a familiar voice called. Little higher than her knees, a flyer was hanging loose by one edge off the wall, but she could make out half a face – the face of _her_ Doctor, the one she had travelled with – and one blue eye staring pleadingly at her. "Romana, you have to get out of here." Immediately, the other Doctors raised their voices as if to drown him out, shouting angrily down at him.

"You listen to _me_ now!" "I don't need _you_ – I know who I am!" "Go away!"

Without warning, a gust of wind came barrelling down the alleyway as if from nowhere. It tugged at Romana's hair and robes, pulling her Doctor's flyer almost free and leaving it clinging by a single corner.

"Run while you still can, Romana!" he called desperately over the furious voices, before his flyer was torn off and fluttered down the alleyway. The gale blew harder, ripping other flyers free from the wall to pursue the first, swirling like autumn leaves and still shouting over the howling of the wind. When it died down and Romana turned back to the wall, only the Doctor with the dark eyes remained, watching with a satisfied smile.

"Oh, I _am_ good…"


	3. An Astute Observation

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who owns my soul...

Thanks so much to the two who reviewed last chapter - MayFairy and Brownbug. Yeah, it's been a while - sorry 'bout that! Few more chapters to go, and I hope this one makes even a _jot_ of sense... :/

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><p>Disgusted, she turned on her heel and ran, heading in the other direction down the alleyway. The monotony of the iron-grey walls, cobblestones and sky gave no promise of an end to the alleyway, but she ran on, light felt shoes scuffing on the cobblestones, the dust clinging to her robes.<p>

She didn't even realize how much she was shaking until she was forced to stop. Hearts pounding in her throat, gasping for breath, she slumped against the cold concrete wall and buried her face in trembling hands. A dry cough forced its way from her throat – it seemed the dust, at least, was more than an illusion. It was certainly real enough to be stinging her eyes; she brushed irritably at them and drew a deep, slow breath.

Was it her imagination, or did the wall at her back have something of a curve to it now, sloping gently inwards more than she remembered from when she had last glanced upwards at the murky sky? Logically, of course, it had to be _someone's_ imagination – this was the Matrix, she reminded herself…so whatever she imagined could quite well be real, even if it were not before she imagined it. It had been the Doctor who had taught her that kind of roundabout thinking, she remembered with a pang.

_Concentrate_, she scolded herself, scrunching her eyes shut and pushing back the memories of her Doctor, his face breaking out into a toothy grin and a twinkle in his blue eyes as he deciphered a puzzle that was obvious in its obscurity and illogical in its own logic. _Concentrate_…

When she opened her eyes again, the scenery did seem to have shifted slightly – was still shifting, its substance altering and deciding itself; not visually – Romana could not _see_, as such, the walls steadily resolving themselves into solid brickwork once again – it was more like becoming _aware_ as if a powerful perception filter had been turned down. Ahead of her, the alleyway slowly widened and cobblestones gave way to loose scree, while the walls curved further and further inwards until they met in a low, sturdy archway. Romana straightened up and began to walk. It might not look like much, but she wasn't getting anywhere just waiting in the alleyway.

As she passed under the archway and into the gloom beyond, the thought crossed her mind that her surroundings rather resembled an old English railway tunnel, and kicking aside a particularly sharp stone revealed part of a rusting iron beam, one of two that emerged from oil-stained shingle some way ahead and ran parallel down the middle of the tunnel and out into the semicircle of light at the other end.

She hesitated – it was the obvious thing to do, follow the tunnel to its end…perhaps _too_ obvious. Then again, perhaps he knew she would come to that conclusion and wait for her to seek an alternative way out. Or perhaps he knew that she would see through a double-bluff and…

She frowned. There had been a time when she would have known precisely when to call the Doctor's bluff – but now…now, she wasn't so sure she knew him as well as she thought she had.

If there was anything left of the Doctor she knew in this man, she couldn't think where she might find it.

A slight tickle on her cheek briefly distracted her; flicking absently at it, she was startled to find a large chronarachnid hanging from her fingers by a thread.

"Ugh!" Her exclamation of disgust echoed down the tunnel, answered seconds later by a skittering in the inky shadows along the edge. She shook her hand violently, flinging the fingernail-sized creature to the ground, and glanced upwards, recoiling as another – this one with a bulbous body the size of a marble – nearly descended onto her face. Again, the skittering sounded, closer this time, and its source now moved into view: several chronarachnids, at least a hand's span wide, the jagged stones visible through their translucent bodies as they scurried towards her feet. The first to reach her, she crushed beneath her foot; its delicate body crumbled like a sculpture of gossamer-thin crystal, but more had emerged from the shadows now, and she stepped back. Something stirred in her hair and she snatched at it, combing her fingers through to pull out three more marble-sized ones and then swatting frantically at her shoulder when something stirred in her peripheral vision and a long, jointed leg of one of the larger ones extended itself towards her face. All of a sudden, she could feel her whole body prickling, as though they were beneath her clothes, crawling across her skin – all in her head, she told herself, until one crawled out across the back of her hand from under her sleeve.

Crying out in horror, she was almost overcome with a wild urge to scratch and claw at her whole body, smash the chronarachnids to dust and vapours of time energy, _anything_ – just get them _off her_! She clenched her hands tightly, nails digging into her palms and pressed her eyes shut, feeling her hearts racing as though they had been the first part of her to succumb to the panic that was swelling inside her.

_They're only chronarachnids_… Willing herself to remain motionless even when a pricking at her ankle called to mind the thorny feet of chronarachnids twice as large again, she inhaled deeply – before a tickling traced its way across her face towards her nose and the breath caught in her throat, respiratory bypass system kicking in on reflex. _They're only chronarachnids. They can't do anything to me – there are far more dangerous creatures in all of time and space_… Gradually, her pulse slowed and she held herself stock still for an interminable pause, just feeling the hundreds of tiny legs scuttling across her skin, her stomach lurching once when the weight of what must have been the biggest chronarachnid yet descended onto her arm. _Completely harmless_…

Eventually, she forced her eyes open and was met with the sightless, silvery, many-eyed stare of a chronarachnid the size of a cat that hung inches from her face. Frozen, she thought for one terrifying instant that she could feel the sting of venomous fangs sinking into her face. A second later, she realized just why her fears had been unfounded. She had never before seen a chronarachnid so close up and magnified, and had all but forgotten what she had known since childhood, since before she had even heard of the spiders of Alzarius, Metebelis III, Earth…the chronarachnids of Gallifrey which fed on instances and moments had no mouthparts; nothing but a shapeless _emptiness_ where the lower part of its head should have been, its edges indiscernible, without colour or size or time. Stubbornly averting her eyes from the creature, she raised her arm and struck it aside, feeling the side of its fragile body crumple like tissue paper. It dropped to the ground, injured but not dead, and raised itself on its remaining intact legs to limp back towards her. She tore her eyes away, moved one foot forwards, then the other – and then stopped dead in her tracks.

At the far end of the tunnel, a figure had appeared. It was the same Doctor that she had taken to be the Keeper of the Matrix, although the gold robes were gone. Dressed now in the flowing, black and white robes and angular, white-trimmed collar that she recognized as the clerical dress of a Gallifreyan court, his tall, gaunt outline was silhouetted sharply against the glaring white light at his back. A mirthless smile played about his lips as he surveyed her, dispassionately taking in her discomfort.

"Romanadvoratrelundar," he said. "Ridiculous name."

"Well what about you?" she retorted. "I rather preferred 'the Doctor'."

"Naturally." Again, that smile that didn't quite reach his cold eyes, and a tugging on the back of her robes alerted Romana to several more of the massive chronarachnids climbing her back.

"What do you want with me?" she demanded, resolutely ignoring the creatures.

"Has it occurred to you to simply go back the way you came?"

"I doubt it's possible," she replied. "_You_ don't seem capable of looking back."

"An astute observation," he admitted. "But what's past is prologue, my dear Romana. My predecessors were fools, encumbered by their own conscience, hindered by sentimentality-"

"And my friend once. Don't you remember, Doctor?"

In an instant, he was standing less than an arm's reach from her – it was impossible to say whether he or she had moved, or whether the gap between them had merely ceased to exist.

"_I am NOT the Doctor_!"

At that, Romana felt as if something inside her was breaking. Looking into the grey eyes, she could see only the Doctor, the Time Lord she would have called one of her dearest friends. But those eyes, totally devoid of any of the warmth and kindliness that had always been such an enduring part of him; his bitter, vehement denial in a voice tinged with desperation beneath the anger – to see him like this…if possible, it was worse than hearing of his death. It was beyond her comprehension how he could have become this, and almost more than she could stand. She felt physically sick just meeting that steely gaze, and she wanted more than anything to reach out to him, to plead for him to remember who he once was, to know what he could possibly have been through to cause him to- …no, she wouldn't, _couldn't_ think it – not the Doctor.

But she couldn't let him hear the sorrow in her voice, wouldn't let him see what the mere fact of his existence was doing to her. She swallowed, forcing down everything that had settled as a lump in her throat, everything that she wanted to pour out to the Doctor, and spoke with the words of the flyers from the alleyway ringing through her memory.

"Yes – the 'Valeyard', you said." For a moment, she could have sworn that something akin to confusion passed across his face – and then in a blink, he had moved back, face once again impassive, and Romana had the sense that he regretted having gotten so close to her. "Did I see all of them, then? Where are you – eleventh? Twelfth?" He narrowed his eyes, studying her face; she steadily returned the stare until with a slight shake of his head, he said,

"Maintaining your physical presence in the Matrix must be taking a greater toll on you than I anticipated."

"You mean you don't even _know_ about-"

"As you can see," he gestured with one hand to the monstrous chronarachnids still pouring from the shadows, "unprecedented by millennia of Time Lords, I have achieved total control over the Matrix. I will come to exist between the Doctor's twelfth and final incarnations – I am unrestrained by artron energy or such limited means of manipulating this mindscape. Your mind must be weaker than I thought, Romana – there is nothing within the Matrix that I am unaware of."

Even as she wondered when the Doctor had ever been quite so arrogant, his words brought an unexpected comfort to her. A potential entity, a living paradox – while it was unsettling to think that whatever the Valeyard was had been drawn out of her old friend, it was some reassurance to discover that in fact, the Doctor might never become the man who stood before her. And with that revelation came a new and horrifying realization.

"You're completely dependent on the Matrix, aren't you?" Her mind was racing now, pieces quickly falling into place. _I will come to exist_, he had said – his existence must still be unstable, but removed from the ripples and eddies of the time continuum, the world of mental energy that formed the Matrix would be able to maintain him as a conscious being. "What kind of a life is that?"

"_Life_?" His eyes flashed with anger. "I am no more _alive_ than a passing thought."

So time had somehow granted the Valeyard sentience without life. There was still so much that Romana felt that she didn't understand, but one thought came clear to her mind, and she boldly voiced it:

"The Doctor would pity you."

"The Doctor fears me." Romana almost shuddered at the pride in the icy voice. "Above all else, the Doctor fears me. He has spent so many lifetimes running from me. Soon, he will have to face me…" Now, he was drifting further away again, the space between the two seeming to stretch and warp. Massive chronarachnids the height of Romana's shoulders stepped out to fill the gap, turning to advance on her.

"So I'm a hostage?" she guessed, forcing herself to keep her eyes on the Valeyard. A dense, grey fog was beginning to build, rolling in from the tunnel mouth, rising at his back, making his form appear hazy. "You're going to trap me here and use me to lure the Doctor back to Gallifrey?"

"Oh, no." Through the thickening fog, she could make out something stirring at his back – an impossibly huge chronarachnid, drawing itself up on legs like blades of glass scythes to reach half a head taller again than the pseudo Time Lord, stepping out from behind him as if it had emerged through an invisible door. Another followed, standing on his other side; flanked by the two monsters, he raised one hand to point directly at Romana. "You have no purpose in my schemes, Romana. You mean nothing to me now."

And then he was gone, vanished without even a ripple in the fog, as though he had never been there. The two chronarachnids tilted their crystalline heads back for a moment, before moving forwards in unison, straight towards her as though guided by some sense other than sight. A smaller, closer creature also raised its head, and as it directed its gaping maw towards her, the thought struck her that they were honing in on her own time energy. She was a living Time Lady – artron energy simmered in her body, she existed on a stable timeline with a past stretching behind her and a future awaiting her, wrapping her in potential time energy – and while the tiny chronarachnids that made their homes in nooks and crannies around the Citadel were harmless enough, feeding on stray passing seconds and spinning their webs in the history of the ancient walls, it wasn't hard to imagine that these abominations closing in on her might seek a more substantial prey.

With a gasp, she spun around, only to find the way behind her blocked by just as many chronarachnids as approached from ahead. Relentless, they pressed forwards, forcing her back step by step until she felt her heel come up hard against the rough brickwork of the tunnel wall. Searching frantically beyond the looming wall of swollen bodies swaying on spindly, angular legs, she briefly caught a glimpse of a deepening in the veil of shadows that covered the opposite wall – a hole, a recess just wide and high enough for a person to duck into, like those built into the walls of railway tunnels on Earth for anyone caught unawares by an oncoming train, only deeper.

Before she could even take a step forwards, though, the gap was filled by another chronarachnid dropping from the ceiling – and another, and another, descending on their invisible threads of time. They towered over her, an impassable throng, and translucent legs waved before her eyes as one lowered itself nearly onto her head.

"I deny this reality!" she cried out desperately, throwing up her arms to shield herself from the dangling chronarachnid. "It's all an illusion! I _deny_ it!" Still, it hung there, inching downwards. She couldn't help imagining its thread snapping, sending it dropping directly onto her face – and everyone knew how fragile timelines could be – it was a wonder any thread of time could support the massive creature at all…

Just as one of the two biggest chronarachnids reared up before her, its two front legs planting themselves on the wall either side of her head, something dawned on her.

"Of course…" she breathed. It was as though a light had been switched on and the answer had been revealed standing before her – it should have been _so_ obvious… Chronarachnids fed on time, spun their webs in time, even their bodies were made up of time energy that their unique metabolic processes had solidified into their glassy, fragile exoskeletons – but in the Matrix, there _was_ no time. The chronarachnids apparently descending on threads above her head simply could _not_ exist here.

Lowering her hands, Romana closed her eyes and walked forwards, straight through the impossible chronarachnids and through the doorway in the opposite wall.


	4. Which Passes Show

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately for me, I don't own Doctor Who. Fortunately for most of the characters I take an interest in, I don't own Doctor Who.

Thanks to Brownbug, MayFairy and Son of Whitebeard for your reviews! And ta to MayFairy particularly this time for adding this fic to her C2, "President Romanadvoratrelundar of Gallifrey", a collection of Doctor/Romana and Romana genfic.

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><p>Time Lords had known for thousands of years that the Matrix could be limitless – and yet, there were still boundaries, limits they imposed on themselves…or was it that the Matrix imposed limits on them? Dangers, limitations, cost and consequence…<p>

The Valeyard had known this once. Or he might never have known it. Or he would come to know it.

He had spread his will across the entire virtual reality, filling it, shaping it as he saw fit.

_"A door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction…"_

Someone had said that to him once, hadn't they? Perhaps they would say it. Perhaps they would never say it – so many possibilities, so many futures that could be engineered, _so_ many memories…the Doctor's memories past, the Valeyard's present impression of life, the Doctor's memories yet to come – he could no longer distinguish. And even as he filled the Matrix, the Matrix filled him.

Outside the Matrix, time moved, but not for him. Outside, he was little more than the illusions he created in his domain – he was an uncertainty, a possibility, nothing more while the Doctor retained his essentially benevolent, selfless nature. He was incapable of feeling the flow of time around him, and there were moments when he came to realize that time had passed and he had been unaware, simply because he did not exist.

And outside time was the Matrix.

He could have chosen any physical form to appear to Romana – he supposed it was still the Doctor's unfortunate tendency to fixate on a particular appearance for each regeneration that kept him returning to the form he wore in reality, along with the attire of the identity he had chosen, determined to cast off the mantle of "the Doctor" in every way possible. But he was so much more than a physical form here – he _was_ the Matrix, and the Matrix had shaped itself to him. He was aware of Romana's every movement as clearly as if he walked beside her, and he saw the steps she had already taken, the paths she could choose – if he allowed her to, of course.

He controlled the Matrix – it would _not_ control him. And Romana was deluded when she said he was dependent on it – the Matrix belonged to _him_.

...

Romana's nails tore into the mouldering cardboard, ripping back the lid of the box and splitting the old, brittle sellotape that had held it closed. Leaning forwards, she plunged her hands into the crumbling, yellowed papers it contained, barely glancing at the grey faces that stared balefully from photographs as she swept them aside.

If there was anything left that might help her, she couldn't think where she might find it.

Through chinks in the wood of the slanted ceiling low above her head, narrow beams of a watery, insipid light filtered through, the only light in the dusty little attic room. Stacked against the walls and strewn across the creaking floorboards, cardboard boxes were strewn about the room, ancient boxes sealed up sloppily with long strips of tape and stashed away, hidden in the dark like shameful secrets.

She started in surprise at a glimpse of her own face, and raising a handful of the loose papers to the dim light, she was met with the sight of her first incarnation smiling haughtily back at her. With a sigh, she set them aside.

She understood where she was now. It was more than the Matrix, and it was more than an illusion in a dreamscape. Perhaps the Doctor had long since forgotten his Academy lessons about the Matrix, if he had ever learned them, or perhaps the Valeyard was just past caring, but Romana remembered. Spend too long in the Matrix and the walls between the mental universe and one's own mind would wear thin. A Time Lord's very soul could become fused with the dreamscapes they created as the inner recesses of their self were drawn out. It was like the legendary Game of Rassilon, she thought – "_he who wins shall lose_" – the closer one became to the Matrix, the greater the control achieved but the more exposed one became.

In the archivists and technicians, the signs were usually spotted from early on – a data store taking the form of one's childhood home, a record speaking in the voice of a feared Academy professor. The Valeyard was clearly well beyond that point; Romana was practically walking around in his head. It was obscene, and it put her in even more danger – but at the same time, she realized that it might be a double-edged sword in the hands of the Valeyard, whom she was beginning to suspect wasn't entirely sure what comprised his own psyche. Some part of him had left her that escape route back in the railway tunnel, which had led her through a narrow passageway and up a flight of stairs into this attic.

Pushing herself to her feet, she looked around the room once again, her eyes involuntarily darting upwards to the beamed ceiling to where she still almost expected to see chronarachnids spinning their webs. It was bare, but moving downwards, her gaze alighted on a wooden door in one wall, half-concealed by a stack of boxes. Curious, she moved forward, picking up the hem of her robes to step over the boxes. At closer inspection, the door had been a familiar shade of deep blue once, although the paint was now faded and peeling. She braced her shoulder against the stack of boxes and pushed them aside, and then lifted a trembling hand to the silver doorhandle and pulled.

Seconds later, she had to stifle a scream as the door swung open and with a dull rattle, the contents of the cupboard behind were dislodged. Entire skeletons, many humanoid but plenty besides – old skeletons; dry, white bones, some with scraps of fabric still hanging from their empty ribcages. The skulls teetered on the tops of their spines, hollow eyesockets seeming to lower their gaze to her as they tilted forwards, grinning mouths gaping open as the jawbones came loose – and then they collapsed forwards, clattering as they fell, more pushing forwards from behind, more than could possibly have fit into the small cupboard behind the door. Staggering backwards, Romana recoiled, raising her arms to fend off the cascade. Blindly, she groped with one hand until she felt the edge of the door, and then she pushed hard, forcing it shut in the face of a smaller skeleton with tattered yellow, green and red fabric draped over its fleshless frame.

Panting, she slumped against the door, reeling in horror, hearts thudding painfully in her chest. She remained there for several minutes while little by little, her breathing calmed, even with the frightful images of what was contained behind that door flashing periodically before her mind's eye. _Yellow, green and red_…she had only caught a brief glimpse of that last skeleton, but something about it still resonated, nagging at her until she had to thrust the image away. She couldn't burden herself with what might be – she had to focus on what she could be sure of, which was so little.

Eventually, she managed to tentatively step back, wincing as she felt her foot pushing through the scattered bones. Lifting her foot to avoid stepping on one – now nothing more than a ribcage with what was left of a black and white maid's outfit partly covering it – the edge of her robe brushed a charred, blackened form; and out of the corner of her eye, she saw a vaguely humanoid form crumble into ash and charcoal, its once-rich clothes collapsing into shapeless gold and maroon fabric. To her relief, the door remained closed, and she backed quickly away to return to the boxes.

The first box she opened contained yet more papers and photographs – and the next, and the next. She saw a human woman with laughing eyes and hands on her hips, standing in the doorway of a house beside a greying old man in an anorak; a teenager in a leather jacket, clutching a battered backpack to her chest; a ruggedly handsome, square-jawed man in a greatcoat brandishing two machine guns…and then finally, she pulled back the lid of a box to meet the blue eyes of a welcome face: her Doctor, the fourth, grinning somewhat tiredly from a "WANTED" flyer.

"Doctor!" she exclaimed. She reached into the box and gently lifted out the flyer, holding it up before her.

"_Valeyard_, I told you," he corrected her, but not unkindly.

"Not you," she insisted. "You're the Doctor – it's you that wants to help me."

"Ah – but the Valeyard _is_ the Doctor; and the Doctor is the Valeyard. We are one and the same, Romana – I am just another part of the Valeyard."

"A part he doesn't know about."

"Perhaps…" He looked uncertain, and Romana bit her lip anxiously before asking,

"So what's he doing?"

"Well, trying to kill you, I should imagine," the Doctor replied bluntly.

"Everyone dies, Romana," another voice cut in from inside the box. Romana leaned over and lifted out another flyer, this one showing the face of an older Doctor with a crew-cut and a bleak expression. "You'll learn that soon – all that life an' good an' hope…you could turn your back for just a _moment_ an' it'll all be gone. Everyone an' everything – it all has its time." She couldn't help a shiver as she set the flyer aside, placing it face-down on the floorboards, and looked quickly back to the fourth Doctor.

"Why?" she demanded. "Why would he want to kill me?"

"He's trying to prove a point," said the Doctor grimly.

"But…he's the only one who knows I'm here."

"Precisely."

"Nothing personal," came a cheerful voice from the box – another flyer, an even older Doctor with a youthful face, a rakish, brown fringe nearly reaching his twinkling green eyes. "Well, no – no, I suppose it _is_ personal. Bit more than personal, maybe…but not for you, mind."

"Well, that's _very_ reassuring," she snorted, and turned back to the fourth Doctor. "So what's his plan? What are those 'schemes' he mentioned?"

"Oh come on, Romana!" The Doctor gave a short laugh. "Have you _ever_ known me to plan that far ahead?"

"But he said-"

"Yes, I always have said that, haven't I?"

"Rule number one, Romana," said the green-eyed Doctor, his voice now low. "The Doctor lies."

"I must agree," a chillingly familiar voice spoke from off to her side, and Romana raised her head in alarm to see the black-clad figure of the Valeyard stepping forward from the wall as if melting out of the shadows. "I have that within which passes show."

"Do you really?" Gripping the fourth Doctor's flyer tightly in one hand, Romana rose to her feet. "You should take a better look around in here, then, shouldn't you?" His eyes were already darting about the room – almost nervously, she noted – but his voice remained as disdainful as ever.

"Inconsequential clutter. Worthless waste – it has no value to me. I could burn every last trivial scrap of it."

"I don't believe that, Doctor."

"I am _not_-" He was cut off; Romana had hesitated for only a split second before dropping the flyer, scooping up two handfuls of the papers and photographs from an earlier box and flinging them at the Valeyard, who flinched. But she didn't stop there – spurred by a sudden surge of anger, she whirled around and dug her fingers into the cardboard of a stack of unopened boxes at her back, ripping them open one after another, overturning them, hurling their contents at the dark-robed Time Lord, who paled, backing away.

"_No_! No, stop…" The musty air filled with fluttering papers; faces flashed before her eyes as she worked her way around the room but she paid them no heed, furiously tearing apart the boxes. Cowering against the wall now, arms raised to shield his face, he attempted to duck sideways from the onslaught, but Romana kicked in the fragile sides of two boxes that lay in his path, spilling their contents across his feet, and he stumbled back with a gasp. He turned just in time to see her place her hand on the handle of the blue door, and his eyes widened in panic.

"No – not that one…you _can't_-" She pulled, and then spun on her heel and ran for the door she had entered through, the clatter of dry bones and the Valeyard's terrified cry ringing in her ears. At the top of the stairs, she paused momentarily and glanced over her shoulder, before fleeing the attic. The last she glimpsed of him, he had fallen to his knees in the flood of bones pouring from the cupboard and appeared to be gripping the front of a ragged spacesuit and shaking it, the skull on top lolling sickeningly.

"I told you not to do it…" he was pleading in a choked voice. "There _had_ to be another way – time could have been rewritten…"


	5. Isn't This Where,,,

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Doctor Who - and nor do I own any of the influences on this chapter (well, on this fic as a whole).

Thanks to Brownbug, MayFairy, Son of Whitebeard and Theta'sWorstNightmare for your reviews on the last chapter. Particularly a _massive_ thanks to Brownbug for helping me tidy up the last chapter and make it...er...make _some_ semblance of sense, and for beta-reading this one - you're awesome! :D

O.K., it's been a while (sorry 'bout that!), and this fic does depend at times on little details following through - so I really do _strongly_ recommend that you read the whole thing from the beginning before reading this, the last, chapter. I'd hate for it to be totally incomprehensible just 'cause it's been, like, months since I started. :/

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><p>The railway tunnel at the bottom of the stairs stretched on for far longer than it should have. Romana had to dodge bricks and blocks of concrete as she ran – the structure was collapsing around her, crumbling into dust, strangely reminiscent of the insidious creeping of entropy. Even when she reached the end of the tunnel and stumbled out into the light, it continued; grey bricks fell around her from walls that seemed to only exist at the periphery of her vision. Among the rubble littering the ground, she caught sight of scraps of paper fluttering in the dust-clogged air, torn photographs that flashed by as she ran on. There were moments when she almost thought she was racing through the deserted streets of a ghost town carved out of cream-coloured rock, ducking as slabs slipped down from overhead to block regularly-spaced oval doors hewn in the rock face – and then the next moment, it was gone, and she was picking her way through the slate-grey bricks again.<p>

Suddenly, her foot caught on a protruding wedge of concrete and brick and she fell forwards, grazing her palms painfully on the rough shale. On her hands and knees, head bowed, she took several minutes to recover her breath. A numbing exhaustion was beginning to set in, both mentally and physically, and she had yet to see even a hint of an escape from the Matrix.

How could she go on, she wondered despondently. It was hopeless – she couldn't possibly run from the Valeyard, but nor could she fight him forever. Even if she were facing a normal, living Time Lord; even if she herself were operating without the constraints of artron energy, life force and a fixed timeline…even then, there had just been something so gut-wrenching about seeing him kneeling there in the ruins of that room, clutching the skeleton. She still couldn't help but recognize him as the Doctor, and that last glance back had left her feeling as though she had struck down an old friend, even though she reminded herself time and again that the Valeyard was probably nothing more than an aberrant manifestation, a mistake.

She was in the Matrix, a mental labyrinth, a virtual reality that could worm its way into the thoughts of even the most experienced minds and strongest wills. She had to hold on to herself at all costs, and what would she be if she dropped to his level of soulless callousness?

Inwardly, she cursed herself for having gotten herself into this mess in the first place. Foolishly, she had walked straight through the Seventh Door and physically entered the Matrix completely unprepared, running after the Valeyard without thinking. All because she had mistaken him for the Doctor and trusted him like she trusted no-one else, even when he so often led her and any number of his companions into danger. A completely impulsive, emotional response…wasn't she supposed to be past that now? Wasn't she supposed to be High President of the Time Lords, the reasoned, rational leader that Gallifreyan society needed, particularly in such a delicate political climate? It was the Doctor all over, of course – it didn't come as any surprise to her that the Valeyard had run for the security of the Matrix after his cover was blown – but Romana…

Romana had simply been following the instincts she had picked up from her time with the Doctor. If she hadn't, it would have been proof that she had learned nothing from the older Time Lord. And if she couldn't trust the Doctor, who could she trust? No, there was no helping it now – the mistake had been made, and now she had to deal with the situation as it came.

Raising her head, she was only mildly surprised this time to see that the landscape had changed yet again. Rubble and bricks still surrounded her where she knelt, but the ground underneath was tarmac – a deserted road or public driveway of some sort. Along either side, neglected lawns, overgrown and choked with weeds and woody thistles, stretched away from the road before fading into the thick fog that still cloaked the horizons. The road itself was in just as dilapidated a condition, pockmarked with potholes and veined with cracks, tufts of dead grass forcing their way through here and there.

Romana warily climbed to her feet and began to walk. At the edges of the road, two low brick walls loomed out of the mist, and she thought at first that she was heading down another alleyway, but these walls were lower, and as she drew closer, she saw that the road ran between two rows of small, semi-detached garages. Behind one row, the spreading branches of a dry, dead tree stretched into the sky, dark and jagged against the featureless, grey sky. At the corner was a broken streetlamp, its bulb hanging by the wires and swinging slightly in the still air; as she passed, Romana found herself thinking of an eyeball hanging loose from its socket, and shook herself to banish the gruesome image from her mind. She had to get out of this place.

The garages, seemingly like the rest of the place, were in ruins, their once-neat blue and white metal doors dented and eaten away by rust, several hanging by one edge or collapsed entirely where the brick walls had crumbled. At the end, the road narrowed to encircle a much larger building, several storeys high, which became clearer as she approached. It too was derelict, the whitewash patched and peeling, dry twigs of dead ivy clinging to one edge. Windows were boarded up with cracked, split planks; broken glass glittered on the ground around her feet as she turned to the right and skirted the building, coming out into a small carpark surrounded by more rundown lawns and the rotten stumps of dead trees. Although she didn't recognize the place itself, she had visited Earth enough times with the Doctor and taken enough of an interest in the planet's societies to realize that she was facing what was once a block of council flats.

With the thick mist still shrouding everything in sight, there was no longer an obvious path to take – until, as though in invitation, one of the white-barred doors creaked open just a few inches, before its rusting hinges gave way and it collapsed inwards with a resounding crash that shattered both the glass and the heavy silence. The glass wall on this side of the building was mostly intact, but filthy, virtually opaque with grime and lichen; if any light at all was penetrating into the stairwell, it wasn't enough to illuminate whatever lay immediately through the door.

Uninviting as the gloomy entranceway looked, she saw little point in wandering around outside any longer. If the Valeyard was intentionally directing her somewhere, she would most likely end up there no matter where she walked; if not, this was probably where she should go, she thought, remembering the alcove in the railway tunnel. Nonetheless, she paused before stepping up the single stair and cautiously passing through the doorway.

Inside, she had been expecting to find herself in some sort of foyer, or perhaps at the bottom of the stairwell. Instead, plunging straight ahead into the heart of the building was a long, straight corridor with wooden-panelled walls and a low ceiling. Feeling no crunch of broken glass when she set her foot down, she glanced down to see that the broken door had apparently vanished and she stood on dull, unpolished, wooden floorboards. The shadows were almost impenetrable – she could barely see further than a few metres ahead, the blackness was so complete – and the first few hesitant steps she took forwards were like walking into a curtain. Then, some way ahead, a yellow glimmer winked into view – a tiny candle in a brass bracket on the wall, sputtering into life and creating a pool of soft light. Despite the cold in the damp air, Romana felt a touch of warmth in her hearts, and with every sense on edge, she set off down the corridor.

The candlelight seemed to remain the same distance ahead as she walked, a little guiding light glowing like a firefly, leading her further and further into the building. It wasn't long before she could no longer see the door she had entered through when she turned around, although that was probably very little to do with how far she had come. There were doors set into the wooden-panelled walls, but after seeing several slam as she neared them and trying a few handles to find them locked, she got the idea. Focusing on the twinkling amber light ahead, the only hope she had that the Doctor would never shut her out entirely, she forced her heavy feet to continue, trudging wearily through the dreary gloom.

At last, the walls angled outwards to form a square-shaped widening in the corridor, a cul-de-sac of a room with several more nondescript closed doors. In the centre was a varnished, wooden desk and an empty chair, and approaching the desk, she saw that a scruffy, leather-bound book lay open there, with a white quill pen on the left-hand side beside it. The yellowing pages appeared covered in writing; curiosity piqued, she bent over the desk for a closer look. It was the Doctor's handwriting, of that she had no doubt – she would recognize that untidy, looping script anywhere – but there were two shades evident on the pages. The older was navy blue ink, long-dried and beginning to fade – not just writing, but sketches, impressions of vague images and faces, some showing creatures that she recognized – Cybermen and Daleks appeared, along with the TARDIS, all surrounded by brief annotations.

"_It's my home, I know it well…_"  
>"<em>I have been different, it's not like remembering one's youth<em>…"  
>"<em>She keeps walking away…<em>"

But to her dismay, Romana found that the further she turned back through the fragile pages, the more the second shade of ink began to dominate – the same ebony black that stained the end of the quill, still clear and fresh on the paper. Some of the older notes had been scribbled out entirely, a few with such fervour that the point of the quill had pierced the paper and the ink soaked through; others had been scrawled over the top of without care for the delicate illustrations.

"_Everything burned. Everything will burn._"  
>"<em>I do not dream.<em>"  
>"<em>That life was wasted.<em>"

Turning one page, she was surprised to find a navy blue drawing of what was unmistakeably K-9 untouched by the black ink – in fact, the notes appeared to have been added to, although several blots and smudges had rendered the newer writing illegible. Another page showed a series of faces in the original ink – all men, mostly dark-haired and many sporting beards or neatly-trimmed goatees – now almost obscured by the only drawing in the new black ink: a slight, black figure, white-haired and seen from behind, one arm extended before him, outline blurred, bent over as though on the point of collapse.

Besides these, though, it appeared that someone had spent a long time attempting in vain to rewrite their own past. No wonder the Valeyard was such an adept with the Matrix, Romana mused, with his propensity for denying realities. A sickening thought occurred to her, and she froze, the page in her hand half-turned: would _she_ appear in this harrowing record? Was she among the Doctor's regrets? Before the page between her fingertips could fall open, she quickly slammed the journal shut, wincing at the sudden noise in the dusty silence. Head bowed, she stared for a moment at her palm flat on the worn leather cover. So this was what she was learning from this new, older Doctor – to turn away, to cover her eyes, to hide from truths that could be painful.

Or, she told herself, she was refusing to allow the Valeyard to manipulate her into thinking like him… Yes, that was it – she _could_ have read further back in the journal; she _could_ have seen her portrait defaced with the savage scratching of that quill a hundred times and been strong enough to put it aside as the bitterness of a corrupted regeneration that shouldn't even exist. She told herself this, and removed her hand from the journal, stepping back from the desk and turning aside to see that one of the doors was ajar, a narrow beam of light knifing across the floorboards at her feet.

The door let out a faint creak when she pushed it, but it swung open easily and she stepped through into a large room, almost a hall of sorts, with a raised dais at the far end, a plain wooden desk placed on a diagonal at the front-right corner of the platform. Like the corridor, the floor was unvarnished floorboards; the walls, though, were whitewashed, patches of creeping mildew visible in the dim light where several of the boarded-over shutters across the windows had broken. Small holes, splinters between some of the more rotten planks – it wouldn't take much more gouging with even just bare fingers to make something of those chinks. The planks were nailed across the windows with the carelessness that came from haste and desperation; Romana had already seen the façade of this building from the outside.

At first, she thought that the room was empty. Moments later, she wondered how she could possibly have thought that – the room was filled with people, all turned away from her, many shouting angrily towards the front of the room at a figure that she couldn't quite make out over the heads of the crowd. And then, just as suddenly, it _wasn't_, and she was alone with just the figure on the platform. The Valeyard stood behind the desk, leaning on its surface with one hand and gesturing with the other – he was speaking to the other side of the hall, Romana's left, and she saw that a number of dark shapes appeared to be propped up against the wall, slumped lifelessly in the shadows. His voice was somehow muted, words indiscernible, as though he were speaking in another room and Romana was hearing his voice through several walls, although she could sense the passion in his speech, which continued without faltering as though he hadn't even noticed her entry.

She took a few steps forward, towards the unmoving shapes that he addressed. Again, that impression of a crowd – faceless, she saw now, except for their eyes which blazed with malice – and again, it was gone, and the Valeyard's voice rose and fell with something more like agitation.

Now, she could see who – or what – he was addressing, and a shudder ran through her. Ragdoll figures – perhaps a dozen of them – lifesized and dressed in an array of bizarre garments; one in striped trousers, a boater hat and a cream-coloured jacket with something green pinned to the lapel; one in a tan trenchcoat over a blue suit; one in checkered trousers and a shaggy brown overcoat; one wrapped roughly in a striped scarf that was painfully familiar to her. Their cloth faces were sloppily drawn on in blotted black ink, but the expressions were unmistakeable – pain, terror, grief…

"…the evidence before the court is incontrovertible…" she heard, and turned back towards the Valeyard, trying not to flinch at the fleeting presence of that phantom crowd and their accusing eyes – eyes fixed not on the grotesque mannequins against the wall, but on the tall, gesticulating figure who stood on the platform.

Moving towards him again, she could see that something was wrong – his own image was flickering, just at the edge of awareness. For fractions of moments, his thin, robed form was not entirely…solid. Unstable. Not quite all there.

"He's losing control…" she realized aloud, and feeling her resolve return in a rush, she stepped back. "I deny this reality," she called.

Something shimmered – a tremor in the air, almost like a heat haze. The Valeyard continued his biting monologue unabated.

"I _deny_ this reality!"

A crack streaked across the skin of the illusion, and Romana thought for a moment that she could almost hear the crunch of splintering glass as her will found its mark.

"_I deny this reality_!"

More cracks, spiderwebbing outwards, covering the fragile scene in all dimensions with jagged, zig-zagging forks – to Romana, not so much like standing behind a window as standing _in_ the window itself. Hearts surging, she drew a deep breath, lifted her head and raised her voice to a shout, each punctuated word like a hammer striking blow after blow to the illusion.

"_I. DENY. THIS. REALITY_!"

And with a smashing that was seen-heard-felt across all imaginable senses, the dreamscape shattered. The room, the row of contorted effigies, the spectral crowd – all crumbled around her, fragments raining down like shards of crystal – twisting, tumbling, glittering with flashes of broken thought. Last of all, the Valeyard himself, dissolving away from the hem of his robes upwards, his voice never missing a beat even as his body melted into nothing. Just for an instant, Romana could have sworn his head had turned, almost thought she had caught the gleam of his pale eyes meeting hers – before the mental universe collapsed…

...

…and she awoke with a start, drawing in a sharp breath and taking a moment to orientate herself. Head resting on her folded arms, she was slumped over a desk or a table of some sort, cold marble numbing her cheek as her senses slowly returned. She dragged her leaden eyelids open with some effort, and allowed her vision to slowly resolve into angular, obsidian and glass walls and panels of intricate technology, all dimly illuminated in a sickly, greenish light.

When a firm hand closed around her shoulder, her hearts skipped a beat, and she gasped and sat bolt upright.

"We are here, Romana," came a gentle voice, and her head snapped around to meet the concerned eyes of Leela, and then to her other side, where she realized that the strong grip belonged to Braxiatel.

"Wh-what…" She swallowed – her throat felt strangely dry, as though the dust that had seemingly coated everything in the false landscape of the Matrix still clung to her. "The…the Valeyard – what happened to-"

"You're with us now, Romana." Braxiatel raised his head, his coal-black gaze meeting Leela's sparkling blue one over Romana's head and then lowering back to Romana. "Come with us."

A tide of relief washed over Romana at the sight of her two friends, and she allowed herself a great, shuddering sigh. She felt utterly drained, and wanted nothing more than to allow her aching head to drop back to her arms where she could give in to her bone-deep exhaustion and sleep where she sat – but Braxiatel's hands had moved to her upper arm, and Leela had taken her other arm. Reluctantly, she pushed herself to her feet, half-pulled upright by Leela and Braxiatel who immediately moved close to offer much-needed support.

"Yes – come with us, Romana," Leela agreed, and with one on each arm, gripping with both hands, the two began to lead her away from the desk.

It was over. The near-impossible struggle, nothing more than a memory now, was over, and she had survived – she no longer had to fight. Leaning heavily on them, Romana allowed herself to be steered across the Matrix control room towards the bright light she could see growing ahead of her through half-lidded eyes.

As they passed, Braxiatel's booted foot came down hard on a sepia-toned piece of paper that lay on the obsidian floor, and then lifted again to reveal a face. The mouth was open, shouting soundlessly, and the blue eyes were wide with horror, watching helplessly as Romana's back vanished into the white glow and welcoming fingers of time energy mist that spilled through the rectangular fissure in the wall.

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><p><strong>THE END<strong>

By Aietradaea

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><p><strong>Author's notes:<strong>

And...that's that! First uploaded multi-chapter fic with the Valeyard, and you may have guessed (or I may have told a few of you) that it was a carefully disguised character-study. Anyway, since it's a bit...different...or abstract, or just _vague_, or whatever you want to call it...I would really, _really_ appreciate a review on this one if you've read this far - I want to know whether it all made sense, what worked and what didn't, what you got out of it. Feedback, that's what I'm after. Although even just little comments to let me know you've read it make me feel loved! ^_^

Thanks so much for reading and sticking with me! May you never end up on the wrong end of a harmonic disseminator! :D

-Aietradaea:)


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